Madman!

Chapter 2: Next Time I'll Beat You to Death

Tung Tau Tsuen Road, on the edge of the Walled City — a street packed wall-to-wall with dental clinics. Nearly two hundred of them lined the road, alongside dozens of general practices and pharmacies, plus a handful of restaurants.

Chen Hanliang's dental clinic sign was squeezed in among this forest of placards.

Hardly any of these clinics or practices held proper business licenses. They were all run by barefoot doctors. The upside was the price — half, sometimes even a third, of what you'd pay outside.

That was why people from all over the city came here to get their teeth fixed or their ailments treated.

The clinic occupied the second floor — thirty-one square meters of space. Its one and only advantage was that it belonged to the family, so there was no rent to pay.

And it wasn't just rent they saved on. Water and electricity were free too.

The Walled City's entire water supply depended on a single Street Pipe — a pipeline running in from outside the walls, stretching all the way to the city's center. Everyone had to queue up there to collect their water.

As for electricity, there was plenty of that. The whole Walled City ran on illegally tapped power lines. Nobody paid a single cent for it.

Chen Wujun glanced at the clock on the wall. Already five in the afternoon.

Over the entire day, only three customers had come in. One needed a tooth pulled; the other two were regulars stopping by for repairs."I'm heading out for a walk!" Chen Wujun announced, rising from his seat.

"Come home early! And stay away from those riffraff!" Chen Hanliang cautioned.

In a place like the Walled City, where all sorts of people mixed together like dragons among fish, there was no shortage of riffraff. Chen Wuhong had fallen in with exactly that crowd, which was how he'd picked up his gambling addiction.

"Got it!" Chen Wujun waved dismissively.

Chen Hanliang was fairly satisfied with his second son. The boy was no good at academics, but he was far less trouble than the eldest.

Still, his favorite was the youngest. Partly because the baby of the family always got a little extra affection, and partly because the youngest was a much better student. There was a real chance he might one day leave the Walled City and make something of himself.

After all, people in the Walled City worked the lowest-rung jobs and could only scrape together fifteen hundred a month.

Out in the real world, even a white-collar position paid four thousand.

...

Chen Wujun left the dental clinic and headed straight into the Walled City, navigating through one unfamiliar street after another, committing every route to memory.

The roads inside the Walled City were like a labyrinth.

He was looking for ways to make money while familiarizing himself with the areas he didn't yet know.

He hadn't given these things much thought before, but now that he'd decided against attending high school, he'd be making his living in the Walled City from here on. Knowing the streets by heart seemed like the bare minimum.

"Hey kid, stop!" A sudden commotion erupted ahead. A young man in a garish floral shirt came bolting around a corner, fleeing for his life, with several men hot on his heels.

Chen Wujun pressed himself flat against the wall, watching with keen interest as the group sprinted past. He stared with mild disappointment as they vanished into an alley.

Would've been nice to stick around for the show.

In a lawless no-man's-land like the Walled City, gangs were an inevitability.

The main road through the Walled City was called Lung Tsun Road. Running east to west, it split the city into northern and southern halves. Hetu and Lidong — the two largest gangs in the Walled City — used Lung Tsun Road as their boundary, each claiming one side.

Hetu was the oldest gang in the Walled City. It had existed for as long as the Walled City itself. Its Big Boss was Lin Jianxin, who also served as the master of the Hetu Martial Arts Hall.

Hetu's style was old-school. They dealt mainly in gray-market enterprises, kept their numbers lean — just a few hundred members — and nearly all of them had come up through the martial arts hall.

Lidong had emerged in the last decade or so, growing aggressively. They had numbers, plenty of riffraff in their ranks, and no scruples about how they got things done.

Lidong had their own martial arts hall too, called Dongsheng Martial Arts Hall.

These two halls were the only New Arts martial arts halls in the entire Walled City, and they served as the talent pipelines for their respective gangs.

Beyond these two major gangs, there were seven or eight smaller outfits — mostly footholds that gangs from outside the Walled City maintained within its borders. They kept a low profile and rarely clashed with the two dominant powers.

...

Every day, Chen Wujun helped out at the dental clinic during the day, then wandered the Walled City at night. He still hadn't found a single lead on making money, which left him increasingly restless.

Three more days passed. When he came home that evening, he found Chen Wuhong slumped dejectedly on a stool beside the sofa, a bandage wrapped around his head.

One look at him and Chen Wujun knew — he'd lost again.

The moment Chen Wuhong spotted Chen Wujun walking in, he leapt to his feet and jabbed a finger at him, seething with rage. "Dad! He pushed me down the stairs! He was trying to kill me!"

"I know I'm no good, but I'm still his older brother! I'm still part of this family!"

"If none of you want me as your son, fine — I just won't come back! Ever!"

Chen Hanliang glanced at Chen Wujun, then turned a frown on the eldest.

Chen Wujun had already told him about the staircase incident the other day, but his version was completely different from the eldest's. Instinctively, Chen Hanliang doubted the older son.

After all, this degenerate gambler had long since burned through every shred of credibility in this household.

Chen Wujun narrowed his eyes, a dangerous glint flickering in them. Then, with undisguised irritation, he spoke. "Lost another bet? Someone cracked your skull, and now you need a scapegoat?"

"How much do you owe this time? Back to squeeze us for money again?"

"Dad, this bastard... this bastard is actually trying to murder me! He pushed me! This wound on my head is from when he shoved me down the stairs! He even stepped on my ankle and threatened me — I've been limping for days..." Chen Wuhong's fury intensified, tinged now with the shamefaced anger of someone whose real motives had been laid bare.

"Enough!" Chen Hanliang slammed his palm on the armrest, staring at Chen Wuhong with exhaustion and disappointment etched across his face.

"Look at yourself! Do you even resemble a human being anymore? Framing your own brother! How did I raise something like you?!"

"I... Dad, please believe me, he really did push me!" This time, Chen Wuhong genuinely felt wronged.

"Believe you? Believe what? That you'll quit gambling? That you're not setting up your brother? Is there a single honest word left in your mouth? How am I supposed to believe anything you say?" Chen Hanliang ground his teeth and continued:

"You might as well be dead! I'll pretend I never had this son! Forget whether your brother pushed you or not — even if he did, you'd deserve it!"

Chen Wuhong stared at his father, agog and speechless. Then his face flushed crimson.

"Fine! Fine! Fine!" he snarled. "I knew it — you all just want to dump me, this burden! Go ahead, shut your door and live your cozy little lives! Whether I starve to death out there or get my hands and feet hacked off and die in the gutter — don't bother yourselves!"

"And let me tell you something — your precious second son is no good either!" With that, Chen Wuhong stormed toward the door.

Reaching Chen Wujun, he shot him a furious glare, then rammed him with his shoulder as he pushed past and marched out.

Once he was through the door, though, he slowed his pace.

Those last two lines had been calculated — designed to make his parents soften and call him back.

...

Inside the room, their mother Huang Meizhen was wiping tears from her eyes, getting ready to chase after him.

"Don't bother with him! Gambling every single day, running home to beg for money whenever he's in debt — this family could have mountains of gold and silver and it still wouldn't fill that bottomless pit of his! And we don't even have mountains of gold and silver."

"Let him die out there!" Chen Hanliang clutched his chest, gasping for breath.

He was livid.

He might not know everything, but one look at the eldest's state told him the second son had been right — that wretch had been gambling again and racked up more debt.

"Let me go check on him. I'll talk to him," Chen Wujun said, already turning to open the door.

"Wujun, talk some sense into your brother. You're all family! Your father was just saying things out of anger!" His mother called after him between sobs.

"Wait a moment!"

Huang Meizhen ducked into the bedroom and emerged moments later clutching several bills. "Give him this money. Tell him to use it for food, and come back in a couple of days once your father's cooled down."

Chen Wujun looked down. A hundred and sixty-two dollars total.

"If he doesn't quit gambling, he doesn't set foot in this house!" Chen Hanliang fumed from the sofa.

"I'll get it to him!" Chen Wujun stepped out and shut the door behind him, then stuffed the money into his pocket.

He glanced to one side. Nearby, a stack of flattened cardboard boxes sat piled against the wall, with two wooden beams resting on top.

Chen Wujun pulled one free, hefted it in his hand to test the weight, and ambled leisurely toward the staircase.

By now, the eldest had only made it a short distance downstairs. His face was a tangle of grievance and indecision.

Grievance, because neither parent believed him. This time he was telling the truth — it really was his younger brother who'd pushed him down those stairs.

And then their father had thrown him out.

His mother hadn't come after him in all this time. Could they really be washing their hands of him?

The indecision came from the money problem. If he couldn't get it, the loan sharks wouldn't let him off.

Down the stairs and into the narrow ground-floor alley, the eldest's feet refused to carry him any further. He stood there, paralyzed between two impossible choices.

Going back now — he couldn't swallow his pride.

But not going back — where else was he going to find money?

As he stood there agonizing, he heard footsteps. He looked up instinctively and saw a figure emerging gradually from the darkness of the stairwell.

Then came a flicker of disappointment.

Not his mother. His younger brother.

A split second later, his eyes locked onto the square wooden beam in his brother's hand.

"Wujun, what are you doing?" Chen Wuhong yelped, visibly startled.

"Didn't I already tell you the other day?" Chen Wujun bared his teeth in a wide grin, every white tooth showing, his face carrying a hint of savagery.

Terror seized Chen Wuhong. He spun and bolted.

Chen Wujun was in no hurry to give chase. Instead, he glanced to one side. About a meter away, in an open doorway, a skinny little girl sat hunched over a table doing her homework. She was looking up at him now.

Chen Wujun raised a finger to his lips in a silent shushing gesture.

He knew this household. The man was another degenerate gambler. The woman was called Sister Hua — a prostitute who took clients at home every day.

The girl was Shu Fen, a first-grader. While her mother entertained clients inside, she sat out here doing her homework.

When he saw the little girl mirror his gesture, pressing her own finger to her lips to show she wouldn't say a word, only then did he take off after Chen Wuhong.

Good — a bit farther from home, so the sound of the beating wouldn't reach the family's ears.

Chen Wuhong's body had long been hollowed out by every vice under the sun. He couldn't run fast. He'd barely ducked into an alley before Chen Wujun caught up and swung the beam straight into the back of his head.

Chen Wujun didn't pull the blow even slightly. As far as he was concerned, this degenerate gambler living or dying made no real difference.

The beam sent Chen Wuhong sprawling. He crashed to the ground, head spinning, clutching his skull with both hands as he screamed, "Are you trying to kill me?!"

Chen Wujun brought the beam down on his arm.

Chen Wuhong shrieked in agony. "My arm's broken! It's broken!"

"Good. That's the point." Chen Wujun sneered, then swung the beam viciously into Chen Wuhong's shin. "I told you — if you come home begging for money again, the loan sharks won't need to bother chopping off your hands and feet. I'll do it for them."

Chen Wuhong's scream didn't even sound human anymore.

Chen Wujun tossed the beam aside, then grabbed Chen Wuhong's other leg and dragged him down the alley.

"What are you doing?! What are you going to do?! I'm your real brother! I watched you grow up!"

Chen Wuhong thrashed and struggled, but Chen Wujun had trained his body for years. Hauling water from the Street Pipe was mostly his job at home. He was in far better shape than his elder brother, who couldn't break free no matter how hard he tried.

Seeing that Chen Wujun wasn't going to acknowledge him, Chen Wuhong switched to begging:

"I was wrong! I really will never gamble again! Please, Wujun, let me go!"

"I'm not Mom. I don't go soft that easily." Chen Wujun scoffed, and dragged the eldest a full hundred meters before dumping him in a different alley.

Then he planted one foot on his brother's face and spoke in a frigid tone. "Whether you live or die here is none of my concern. Don't come home."

"Next time, I won't let you off this easy. I'll beat you to death."

"What will Mom and Dad think when they find out? We're brothers, Wujun!" The eldest was crying with snot and tears streaming down his face, begging, his eyes full of terror.

He was genuinely afraid now.

The way Chen Wujun looked at him — it wasn't the way you looked at family. It wasn't even the way you looked at a human being.

"My arm and my leg are broken... Wujun..."

Chen Wujun kicked him square in the stomach, punting the rest of his words right back down his throat. Then he smirked coldly.

"When I get home, I'll tell them the loan sharks broke your arms and legs. Who do you think Mom and Dad will believe — you, or me?"

"And don't worry about your limbs. I know exactly how hard I hit. The bones are cracked at most. Even without treatment, they'll heal on their own."

As for whether they'd work properly afterward, or if there'd be any lasting damage... well, as long as they healed, that was good enough.

With that, Chen Wujun turned and strolled away without a backward glance.

On his way back, he deliberately took Lung Tsun Road. He'd been planning to buy a lollipop, but as he approached the corner shop, he spotted a kid standing out front clutching one, fingers just about to peel the wrapper off.

He walked over and looked down at the child. The kid looked up with wide, innocent eyes.

Then he reached out and snatched the lollipop right out of the child's hand, spun around, and melted into the crowd.

Behind him, the kid froze. Stared at his empty hand in disbelief. Then burst into wailing sobs.

This was followed by a woman's shrill tirade: "What kind of soulless, rotten piece of garbage steals a lollipop from a little kid?! Why don't you just drop dead?!"

Arriving downstairs, he saw Shu Fen still at the doorway doing her homework. Chen Wujun tossed the lollipop to her.

The little girl caught it, confirmed it was really meant for her, and her face lit up with surprised delight. She clutched the lollipop tight, too precious to unwrap.

Back home, his father Chen Hanliang gave him a glance, then went back to smoking in brooding silence.

Meeting his mother's anxious gaze, Chen Wujun adopted an obedient expression. "I gave the money to him. Talked to him too."

"But he ran into some loan sharks looking for him, and he took off. They chased after him."

Hearing this, Huang Meizhen's worry deepened. Tears welled in her eyes as she turned to Chen Hanliang. "What are we going to do?!"

"Let him die out there!" Chen Hanliang spat through gritted teeth, the words still fueled by rage.